Kyle J. Gerkin is vice president of Internet Infidels, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview. He is the author of several articles dealing with religion.

 

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April 14, 2007

Criticism of Christianity is voluminous. Thousands of words have been written that challenge almost every aspect of the religion. All of the philosophical arguments for the existence of a God have been assaulted. The Bible’s accuracy on various points has been called into question repeatedly. The moral merits of Christianity have been disputed exhaustively. And yet, as interesting as these topics can be, I can’t help but suspect that such criticism is a waste of time more often than not. One can usually save a lot of time and effort by simply pinpointing the main premise and determining where the disagreement lies with regards to it rather than debating the superstructure ad nauseam. Fortunately, it is easy to locate the central premise of Christianity. Paul tells us himself in 1 Corinthians 15:14: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” That is hard to argue with. After all, if Jesus was not miraculously resurrected by the power of God after his execution, then all Christian teachings must collapse. Practically speaking, if you believe Jesus was resurrected, you’re probably a Christian, and if you don’t, you’re probably not.

All Things Are Not Equal

The basic narrative presented by the gospels is as follows. Jesus was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem on a Friday. After three hours on the cross, he expired. Then Jesus’ corpse was taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb. On the following Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead and left his tomb in a glorified body. Jesus proceeded to appear in this form to various disciples and then ascended to heaven.

So what actually happened? One possibility is that the gospels are essentially accurate in their portrayal of these events. Naturally, this is the view held by most Christians. Alternate possibilities include:

1)      Jesus actually survived his ordeal on the cross, was mistakenly buried in a comatose state, then regained consciousness and escaped his tomb.

2)      The apostles conspired to remove Jesus’ body from the tomb and fabricate the story of his resurrection.

3)      The gospel writers deceptively invented a miraculous narrative to bolster the nascent Christian Church.

4)      The gospels were exaggerated and embellished over time, and a kernel of truth was obscured by legendary trappings.

Of course, some combination of the above scenarios may have occurred. For the skeptic of the resurrection, it is not so important to establish exactly what happened but simply that there are possible explanations for the gospel accounts that do not involve a genuine resurrection. A cursory Google search will reveal dozens of articles dedicated to exploring the varying probabilities. But while it can be fascinating to discuss such minutiae as whether Jesus’ tomb was guarded or not, perhaps we are once again focusing on surface details when there is a deeper issue at the root of the disagreement.

Ultimately, the contention that Jesus was resurrected is a historical claim and must be evaluated as such. Skeptics will note that the evidence for the resurrection boils down to a handful of accounts written by members of the early Church decades after Jesus’ death that describe an empty tomb and a few post-resurrection appearances to Jesus’ followers. To counter this, Christian apologists will argue that the New Testament is on as strong (or stronger) historical grounds than other ancient writings, such as those of Julius Caesar or Tacitus. Whether this is true or not, there is no question that scholars consider the New Testament to be a valuable historical resource. Given this, should we not apply the principle of Occam’s razor and, all things being equal, accept the accuracy of the recorded resurrection accounts as a simpler explanation than any speculative alternatives?

Ah, but all things are not equal, and this is where I believe the root of the debate lies. The resurrection can’t be judged by ordinary historical standards because it belongs to a special class of events. Specifically, it is a supernatural event. By supernatural, I mean an event that contravenes the way in which nature (i.e., the universe) has been widely observed to operate. Note that I am not saying that supernatural events are impossible. But we need a method to determine whether or not to believe a particular supernatural event occurred.

Anti-Supernatural Bias?

At this juncture, Christian apologists may object that it is unfair to hold supernatural events to a different standard than ordinary events and that anyone who does so is simply exhibiting anti-supernatural bias. But this is not a tenable argument. Scientific observation of the past is based on the principle of uniformitarianism—the idea that the natural processes operating in the past are the same as those that can be observed operating in the present. For instance, the fact that people do not rise from their graves in the present day would indicate that they did not do so in the past either. But Christians want to circumvent this rule of observation by noting that Jesus’ resurrection was not a “natural process” and therefore we should not expect to see it repeated or reproduced. The problem is that by this logic, any claim from the past, no matter how wild or absurd, can be justified as a one-off supernatural event. Are Christians prepared to accept the legitimacy of any and all historical reports that allege supernatural happenings? It seems likely that they are not.

Once again, this does not mean the resurrection did not occur; it just means we must apply a different standard when trying to determine the accuracy of supernatural claims than we would for mundane matters. Of course, historical events can never be precisely replicated. But when we read that Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army, we can reflect on the fact that present day armies often cross rivers as well, and thus we have little trouble accepting the possibility in Caesar’s case. When it comes to Jesus’ resurrection, we have no such present day observations to inform us, and that is why we must establish a rubric to decide whether or not to accept supernatural claims of this kind.

Conditions for Credibility

So what level of evidence is necessary to establish a historical report of a supernatural occurrence as accurate? Let us first consider the possible types of evidence.

1)      Reproducibility. If God were regularly resurrecting people for each generation to witness and investigate, Jesus’ resurrection would not appear far fetched. Undoubtedly, events such as earthquakes and solar eclipses were once viewed as supernatural by various cultures. The fact that the natural processes behind these phenomena are understood doesn’t alter the fact that they could have been reported as supernatural events in the past. And we can use the reproducibility of such events to decide that those reports have a reasonable chance of being true. Christ’s resurrection has no evidence of this kind in its favor.

2)      Corroborating reports. Naturally, the more accounts we have recording a particular event, the stronger the case for that event. But quantity is hardly the only factor. Important considerations include:

a)      Temporal proximity to the event. How soon after the event was it recorded?

b)      Physical proximity to the event. Was the author an eyewitness? Was the author reporting the testimony of eyewitnesses? Is it only a third-hand account?

c)       Disposition of the author. Was the author sympathetic to the cause and thus possibly motivated to prop up or embellish an account? Or was the author hostile (or at least neutral), thus lending further credence to the claim?

d)      Eminence of the author. What kind of reputation did the author have? Was the author an established historian with a strong track record or an average guy off the street?

In the case of Jesus’ resurrection, the handful of reports we have (the gospels) were written several decades after the event. So far as we know, none of the authors were eyewitnesses, nor do we know how far down the chain of testimony they were. All the authors were Christians with strong reasons to support the cause. No hostile or neutral accounts of the resurrection exist. No major historian of any repute recorded the resurrection. So we can see that the resurrection reports are severely lacking in almost every quality that could bolster the case.

3)      Physical evidence. Despite the lack of photographs or videotapes, there are still numerous kinds of physical evidence available to record events from antiquity. Coins, inscriptions, monuments, and papyri manuscripts that can be dated to within a few years of the event in question are powerful attestations of authenticity. With regards to the resurrection, we have no physical evidence of any kind.

A Failure on All Counts

With all of that in mind, I will now suggest what I consider to be the minimal criteria necessary to justify trusting a historical report alleging a supernatural event. The precise quality and type of evidence must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but broadly speaking:

1)      At least two of the three types of evidence must exist in the event’s favor.

2)      If the event is reproducible, it must have reoccurred within the last century.

3)      If corroborating reports exist, they must have been originally written within a decade of the event, they must be at least second-hand accounts, and at least one of the authors must be neutral or hostile to the cause.

4)      If physical evidence exists, it must date to within a decade of the event.

At this point, it should come as no surprise that the resurrection fails to meet a single criterion listed above. I have tried to develop an unbiased standard by which any supernatural report can be judged; however, it may be suggested that I (consciously or not) tailored my criteria to take the resurrection out of the running. Thus, I invite Mr. Holding to put forth his own set of criteria by which we can evaluate supernatural claims. Yet, it is hard to imagine any criteria lenient enough to allow for acceptance of the resurrection reports without also allowing for just about any supernatural claim you care to mention.

I do not claim to know exactly what happened after Jesus’ died. For that matter, I don’t even argue it is impossible that he was resurrected. But I do know that the evidence available to us is far too weak to justify belief in a supernatural resurrection. So unless better evidence appears, I can only conclude that one of the alternate possibilities is correct. As for which one, well, I can live with uncertainty.

J. P. Holding responds to Kyle J. Gerkin.